


Hyacinth Daydream

by lolahaze



Category: Stoker (2013)
Genre: Alienation, Bathing, F/F, Parent/Child Incest, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:34:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26025796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lolahaze/pseuds/lolahaze
Summary: India comes home, and some women weren't made to be mother and daughter.
Relationships: Evelyn Stoker/India Stoker
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19
Collections: RelationShipping 2020





	Hyacinth Daydream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [summerdayghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerdayghost/gifts).



Evelyn has always been scared of her daughter.

  
  


*

  
  


India worries her.

When India was born, she was a quiet baby. Hardly made a fuss. A blessing, shouldn’t she be? What mother wouldn’t dream for a quiet baby. She was quiet while Evelyn screamed as she came out of her womb and out between her legs and she was quiet when she first held her in her arms, her eyes sleepy and half closed. Cute, isn't she?

Evelyn didn’t think she was cute. At the time, she was exhausted and didn’t want to hold her child, which she is told, makes her a bad person. She wanted to rest, and that makes her a bad mother. 

India seems to have never forgotten the slight. Evelyn could scarcely ever make her daughter happy. 

Sometimes, she thinks India doesn’t love her at all. 

  
  


*

  
  


Her daughter is made of stone, composed of dark, morbid things, morbid thoughts, ghastly thoughts that enter her brain and leave her mouth. 

_ Did you know, the human head remains conscious 20 seconds after decapitation, mother? Did you know? What do you think it’s thinking? Do you think it can feel pain? _ Evelyn would like to not know. India knows she doesn’t like the way she talks but she does it anyway.

Sometimes her daughter reminds her so strongly of her father, it’s like a heart attack. A punch in the stomach. India has his hands and the mischievous twinkle in his eyes and his need for quiet, dark places, a resplendent sprawl in the sun, a hidden hideaway in the dark. She did not inherit Richard’s charm. 

It’s a terrible thought, to see your husband in your daughter; Evelyn doesn’t see any of herself in there. It’s all Richard. All Stoker, no Evelyn. 

She hates it.

_ I can’t wait to watch the world tear you apart _ .

  
  


*

  
  


India is not a sweet child; she is cold and keeps to herself, her eyes are a dark void, and if it weren’t for the strange bond between her and Richard, Evelyn would say India was not capable of love at all. 

But she’s seen it. She loves her father, at least. So Evelyn knows she did not raise a heartless child. Just a gloomy one, a morbid one, a wild stubborn willful one. 

India just doesn’t love her.

Evelyn watches them, from the end of the hall, door cracked open, in their study. Watches them from her balcony, returning from a hunt, rifle in Richard’s hand, India stoic-eyed but a bounce in her step. 

Evelyn thought she was too young for that sort of thing; privately, Evelyn didn’t think hunting was a proper activity to be teaching a child. Evelyn could see no appeal in shooting a deer and watching it twitch and flail and die.

But India had wanted to hunt.

Evelyn had never understood what India wanted but Richard grasped it instinctively.

_ She needs this,  _ he told her, in no uncertain terms.

  
  


*

  
  


India saves her life. 

Evelyn, throat raw and ragged, barely seeing straight, cannot help but look at the splash of blood on India’s face. There’s a corpse before her but she’s transfixed by India’s dark eyes and pale skin and red blood. Charlie’s blood. 

Evelyn thinks that her daughter looks like she’s in her natural element. The hunter underneath her pretty skin. 

Evelyn  _ knows  _ she’s seeing India for the first time. The India she was always trying to show her, wasn’t she? 

Evelyn wants to tell her to leave.  _ Get out of here.  _ She doesn’t say it but India understands anyway. She perhaps, has always understood her better than Evelyn understood her, a one way street. 

She leaves the next morning. As she does, Evelyn curls up in her bed and wants to scream  _ no no, come back. I didn’t mean it.  _

Then, later, alone in an empty house, she says out loud  _ you should have let him kill me. _

  
  


*

  
  


Two weeks after India left her with a dead brother in law, she gets a postcard. A pretty picture of a seaside beach town, sunshine and cream-coral umbrellas and soft ice cream...everything India isn’t.

On the back, there’s nothing but her address, her daughter saying nothing. India could give her the silent treatment for weeks.

Evelyn pins it to the refrigerator, like she thinks normal mothers and daughters do. Normal mothers feel pride in their daughters, don’t they?  _ Thank you for killing Charlie, India.  _

Then another postcard. Another city. New Orleans, loud and beautiful. The postcard is of Lafayette Cemetery. There’s a spot of blood on the corner.

How did she raise such a girl? 

Then another, and another, week after week, for months. Chicago. St. Louis. San Antonio. The stream of postcards slows down eventually—sometimes a whole month passes without hearing from India. Evelyn sips her morning coffee and does not think about her daughter as a dead girl floating down the river, or her daughter, killing someone with a blade, or her daughter, rotting in jail.

But eventually a postcard arrives, with silly little tourist traps printed on them, until the entire refrigerator is covered in them. 

India makes her presence known. 

  
  


*

Her wayward daughter returns just as quickly as she’d left, snap snap, like a rattlesnake bite. 

India Stoker, dressed in crocodile skin boots now, rather than heels, rather than her saddle shoes, in her living room. Pencil skirt, a respectable skirt, pleated and knee length, perfect size, held together by—yes, that was Richard’s belt. The light streaming across her face highlights how pale she is; you think a vacation out in the sun would do the girl some good but she’s never been one to tan. 

Her face, impeccable as always, sculpted clean, revealing nothing, or at least, not to Evelyn, as always. Stone face, stone heart. She’s lost the baby fat along her edges, and it makes her look more angular, fox-faced, vixen faced. Richard could always see right through India and Evelyn feels that familiar ache, burning in her chest, like a wildfire, yet again. Jealous of her own husband. 

Evelyn gasps when she sees her.  _ You gave me quite the frigh _ t, she thinks. 

“You’re wearing your father’s belt,” she says instead, stating the obvious. Her voice is startlingly loud in the atrium to her own ears. She doesn’t greet her. No hello. Evelyn has forgotten her pleasantries, not that India ever cared for them. 

“I am,” she says, sitting down on the couch, in a fluid gesture, soft of foot.

There’s so much India doesn’t say, just in the way she sits; comfortable, like she never left, almost lounging lazily. 

“Would you like some supper?” Evelyn asks. Not sure why. She’s never been one to cook. 

“It’s not dinner time yet,” India says. 

“Then tea?” It feels important to ply India with food. Hospitality laws. 

Instead she makes India tea, and this she can do, at least, she knows what her daughter likes. Earl grey, classic and strong, like Richard. One spoonful of sugar. Evelyn has been experimenting with teas—peppermint and chamomile and ginger. Oolong, nettle, ginger root. She puts out Jasmin and prepares it for herself. 

Her daughter says nothing, sipping her tea, toying with the spoon Evelyn gave her, tap tap tap on the ceramic, while her biscuits sit untouched on her tea plate. Some things never change. 

Evelyn looks at her, takes in the sight of her, feeling her heart clench up, thinking  _ I miss you. _

Not missed. Misses India, even now. This was a strange adult her daughter had grown into and her daughter was always  _ strange,  _ but Evelyn had grown used to the quiet yet wild child that roamed the grounds, reading among nature, hunting animals with her father. Grown used to the headstrong and challenging way India always was around her. 

Adult, fresh and new, but adult India, was a new creature entirely to her. 

“Where have you been?” she asks. 

India holds her gaze steadily—slyly, assessing, her dark eyes practically a void. “Didn’t you get my post cards?”

This is supposed to be an answer. 

“You never wrote,” Evelyn says. “What am I supposed to ascertain from a series of locations?”

India sips her tea. The noise of it, the uncouth slurp, rings throughout the room. Some things India can’t hide. “There wasn’t anything to say,” she says.

“Of course,” Evelyn concedes. ‘You should go to Europe. I bet you’d love it. You father took me throughout France on our honeymoon. Paris and Bordeaux and Marseille. It was beautiful.”

India shrugs. A small imperceptible whisk of her shoulders. Her lips, a slight twitch. “Maybe,” she says. 

_ Perhaps we can go together,  _ Evelyn thinks but she knows the answer to that. 

“You don’t want to?” 

India tilts her head to the side, like she’s listening to something else. “I’ve learned most places are the same,” she says. There’s a weight to her words. A heaviness that settles in Evelyn’s bones, like a stone sinking in her stomach. 

“Have you killed any other people?” she blurts it out. India has a way of creeping and crawling under her skin, and pulling out her insides. 

India’s gaze fixes on Evelyn. Her eyes are black pools of darkness. 

“Yes,” she says plainly. No sparing her feelings. No lying, either. Evelyn could at least thank her for that; for not lying to her. Her pulse flutters madly under her skin, like a trapped butterfly. Her face is hot, like the summer sun shining on it. 

“How many?” she asks.

“I’ve lost count.”

“I don’t believe that,” Evelyn bites down on her lip. “You’re…”

“Obsessive?”

“Meticulous.”

And India smiles—an unmistakable splitting of her lips. “I’ve killed six,” she says, leaning over to take a sip of her tea. “Not counting Charlie.” She pauses. "Did you expect more, or less?"  


The number is somehow both smaller than she anticipated and so much bigger. 

Right then.

“I'm going to bed,” she says and heads upstairs. 

“Goodnight, Mother,” India says, her voice echoing behind her, and drinks the tea she made her. 

  
  


*

  
  


Before she sleeps, India wordlessly and soundlessly slips into her room, watching Evelyn brush her hair before bed. She sees her in the mirror before India makes herself known and gasps. 

“Let me,” India says, and takes the hairbrush from her hands without asking. She brushes her hair for her, taking control of the situation. Evelyn doesn’t fight it. She luxuriates in it, arching towards the sensuality of India’s hands, fine long fingers, careful digits, and practiced touches. For a moment, she thinks maybe India does love her, in her small quiet way. She can’t say it and neither can Evelyn and this is just how it’s going to be. 

For a moment, she feels Richard’s hands on her, taking care of her,  _ loving  _ her...and shudders. Evelyn thinks of Richard, his smart mouth, his fine lips, his mischievous eyes. The way he made her feel alive. The way he made both of them come to life. 

“Why are you here, India?” Evelyn asks. She didn’t mean to say it. She didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth—press too hard down on India and make her leave.

_ The real question is, why didn’t you kill me?  _ Isn’t that where we’ve been heading our whole lives?

India doesn’t answer. She continues to brush her hair, and when she’s done, India leans in close, observing Evelyn. Hands on her thighs; strong hands, nimble fingers. Not fragile hands. An artist, a piano player, a hunter, a strangler in the night. Through the creamy silk of her night gown, India’s hands burn against her fragile skin. 

This close, India smells like blood. 

Her mouth tightens. 

For a moment, Evelyn wonders if she might die, if the inevitable had simply been delayed.

“I don’t know,” India says and swiftly turns to take her leave. 

India slips away in the night. 

Evelyn does not expect her to return.

  
  


*

  
  


Except she does, at an ungodly hour in the night. Evelyn is still awake, hair almost perfect, still in her nightgown, listening to her daughter stalk throughout her house. 

She is noisier than normal. The sounds of her, the lingering smell of blood, makes Evelyn stir and rouse to attention. _ Her blood is hot.  _ That’s a strange thought, a forbidden one, but she feels warm, sticky underneath the skin, not entirely real, like she may still be dreaming. She finds her feet, bare and soft, trending on the wooden floor, down the hall, looking for her daughter. 

She finds India about to pop into the bathroom on the second floor (white tiles, white all over, marble and beautiful and placid and empty). India stills in motion when Evelyn steps into the hallway, caught. For a moment, she is simply a figure in the darkness, a silhouette of a girl, her profile beautiful, but she turns to face her and the pale profile of her face is illuminated, even in darkness, by the blood it’s covered in. 

Evelyn gasps.

India freezes. No, not freezes. Trembles, like a deer caught in headlights. Her eyes wide and fathomless, frozen on sight. Evelyn can see her hands shaking. 

India does not move as Evelyn steps closer, and closer, until they are face to face, and Evelyn’s eyes adjust to the dark. Her daughter has blood streaked down her throat, in dark crimson splashes. She thinks India should have been more careful. She’s better than this. She smells strongly of copper, her nostrils flaring. 

India does not like to be touched but Evelyn touches any way, reaching out and cups her face in her hand,  _ let me look at you, let me look at my daughter.  _

India hisses, like steam letting out. Her dark eyes meet Evelyn’s burning blue ones. 

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Evelyn says. She wonders if Richard did this. Clean his daughter up after hunting. She was never privy to those rituals except for sneaky glimpses she caught. 

In the shower, India strips for her. The clothes come off easy, like unwrapping a present. The blood on her skin sticks out brightly in the white room. “Are you always this messy?” She asks. 

Evelyn isn’t sure what she’s doing. She’s never been a terribly good mother. She was never made for it, the way other women are; a frivolous sort of woman, they called her, composed of champagne and chiffon and all manner of nice, indulgent things. Not made raising children.

“Sometimes I strangle them,” India says. 

India, not made for being anyone’s child. 

The words send a chill through Evelyn—hands on, long fingers tightening, sharp teeth gleaming, no mercy—but she continues with her task, turning on the shower head, waiting for the water to grow warm. Once it’s the right temperature, she gently urges India under it. 

India’s skin is hot, her nipples hard. Her daughter is all lean angles, sharp limbs, milky pale skin all the way down, a dark patch of bushy hair. India leans back against the tile, exposing her throat to her but it’s not a gesture of vulnerability. Perhaps one of trust? If India would ever trust her. 

It is revealing, proud, haughty, it is a gesture Evelyn has done on many several occasions. 

She washes the blood off her daughter. India sighs in contentment, spreading her legs, arching her back. A shudder goes through her as Evelyn scrubs her. Her scent sharpens into something ripe. 

Evelyn’s nightgown sticks to her body as the water pours down, like a second skin. India sizes her up, stares at her body as Evelyn stares at hers. The shower water rattles on the ground, with a heavy pitter patter. 

“It’s like you were made for this,” Evelyn whispers. 

“I was. I am.”

India’s hand, rattlesnake quick, grabs her wrist, and brings it between her own legs, sliding it against her cunt. Evelyn’s fingers rub against the soft, slick skin, wet enough to slip a finger inside her, her clit swollen and pink. 

“Please,” India says and closes her eyes, softly gasping. With the blood pooling pink in the shower water, she looks like a freshly shaved lamb. 

Evelyn had always longed to comfort her daughter; to soothe her as a mother should, whispered reassurances, forehead kisses, strokes alongside her back and shoulders,  _ I love you I love you.  _

Evelyn had always longed for something more than she could give, more than India could handle...except until now. 

  
  


*

  
  


India, fresh after a kill, is as soft and pliant as a newborn.

Instead of slipping out, India slips in her bed that night. 

She climbs in beside her, like her husband used to do so, skin to skin. Evelyn slips her nightgown off. It was always such a luxury, her bare skin against the silky soft sheets, leaving her moaning softly with indulgent pleasure. 

India’s skin is burning hot against her now.

India, not wearing anything. 

India pressing a kiss to her lips.

Evelyn, unfurling for her daughter. Together.   



End file.
